Øystein Walle [off-list ref] writes:

If rebase.instructionFormat is invalid the repository is left in a
strange state when the interactive rebase fails. `git status` outputs
boths the same as it would in the normal case *and* something related to
interactive rebase:

    $ git -c rebase.instructionFormat=blah rebase -i
    fatal: invalid --pretty format: blah
    $ git status
    On branch master
    Your branch is ahead of 'upstream/master' by 1 commit.
      (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

    git-rebase-todo is missing.
    No commands done.
    No commands remaining.
    You are currently editing a commit while rebasing branch 'master' on '8db3019401'.
      (use "git commit --amend" to amend the current commit)
      (use "git rebase --continue" once you are satisfied with your changes)

By attempting to write the rebase script before initializing the state
this potential scenario is avoided.
---
The diff looks perhaps more messy than required. The only required
change is the filling in of make_script_args and the call to
sequencer_make_script() above the call to init_basic_state(). But then
the `if (ret)` looks out of place, and moving that up means adding `goto
cleanup` which means the code that was previously the else case can be
dedented.

get_commit_format() calls die() in this case, so cleaning up the
sequencer state isn't an option. Maybe it shouldn't call die in the
first place, but that looks to be much larger change.

The patch has been stalled for a few weeks since Phillip's review
comments.  What's the status of this?  Will we see a response and/or
an updated patch sometime soon?

Thanks.